1. Field of the Application
This invention relates to a magnetic recording device such as a video tape recorder (VTR), and more particularly to a magnetic recording device simple in arrangement which is capable of recording still pictures with high picture quality.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, a so-called "camera recorder" has been popularly used which is formed by combining a video camera and a VTR in an eight mm video cassette recorder (hereinafter referred to as "an 8-mm video cassette recorder") or a VHS-C.
A specific feature of the camera recorder is that it is small in size and lightweight. Therefore, the camera recorder is suitable for a person to carry while travelling or to a particular event such as an athletic meeting, and has been sufficiently improved in picture quality to a degree which is acceptable for ordinary use.
For instance, the image pickup tube or image pickup element which is the most essential component in a video camera has been improved in sensitivity and in resolution. Especially in the case of a CCD (charge-coupled device), the number of picture elements has been increased to about 250,000, so that the resolution has been increased by about 30%, and the occurrence of smear and moire phenomena has been suppressed.
With respect to the circuitry, the emphasis circuit and the comb type filter have been improved to increase the S/N ratio. Furthermore, the camera recorder has an advantage inherent therein that, since the camera is coupled directly to the VTR, a circuit for mixing a luminance signal and color signal and a circuit for separating these signals can be omitted, so that it is unnecessary to compress the band of the luminance signal and the color signal, which thus improves the resolution and the color reproducibility.
In general, with a video camera, a motion picture of moving persons or scenes is taken, but a still picture is rarely taken. However, often a single frame of the motion picture is reproduced as a still picture for observation.
In reproduction of a still picture with a VTR, the resultant picture often suffers from blur and noise. This difficulty is attributed to a tracking error which is caused when the magnetic head does not accurately trace the video track where a picture to be reproduced has been recorded. However, a recent VTR has been equipped with a magnetic head for reproducing still pictures only, to lessen the effect of the blur or noise.
On the other hand, recently a video printer for providing a video image as a hard copy has been proposed, and therefore it can be considered that it will become popular to print a still picture from a video signal for enjoyment.